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“You’re right about that, sweetheart,” I whisper to the empty kitchen that still smells like sex. “We’re just getting started.”
10
BECK
It’s a few hours before she comes downstairs again. I’ve had the same movie on loop the whole time, though I’ve paid attention to approximately none of it.
She sits beside me on the sofa, sighs, and shoots me a couple side-eyes I’m pretending to ignore.
“Want to talk?” I ask her after a few minutes.
“Fine.”
When she looks at me, I can still see the anger rolling off of her. Her face is red. Her eyes are narrow. Her mouth is pressed into a tight line.
And none of that is going to stop me.
“You were kidnapped,” I begin.
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“And you could’ve been hurt.”
She nods. “Yes, but you can’t lock me away. I can’t be your prisoner in the name of safety.”
“Letters have been hand-delivered to you at this house.”
“Which just shows that your house isn’t any safer than anywhere else I might go!”
“Nowhere is perfect. But here, I have some abilities to control the environment that I don’t have once you step outside the front gate.”
I’m not even mad anymore. I’m… fuck, I don’t know what I am. I just need her to see what I see. If I can make her understand, maybe we can go back to… hell, I don’t even know that, either. Back to whatever we had before, I guess.
Her voice drops into something softer and more desperate. “It feels like this is just about control for you. Controlling the house. Controlling me. Controlling everything.”
I press her hand between both of mine. “If I can control who comes and goes from this house, who has access to myfamily, I can keep all the shit out. I’m trying to make sure you and this baby are safe, that you have a place where you know no one is going to hurt you.” Softer, I add, “I want to be your safe place.”
She stares at me for what could be minutes or what could be hours, I can’t tell, before she drops her chin to her chest and exhales. “You already are, Beck.”
“Then do this my way. Let me protect you in the way I know how. “
When she nods, a peace I haven’t known in a while settles over me.
God help me, we might make it after all.
By the time Dr. Ross arrives, things are calmer, quieter, and we’ve reached a semi-comfortable silence.
For a few minutes, they are alone in the room, talking. When the doctor comes to the threshold of the den where I’m still waiting, I figure that he’s just stopping to say goodbye and drop his invoice on the way out.
But Dr. Ross smiles. “Come in, Mr. Daniels. You have a lot to see.”
I follow him into the makeshift clinic. Sloan is sitting in a medical-grade reclining chair that was delivered earlier. It has a smooth vinyl top and that crinkly white paper rolled out across the surface.
“You look sweaty,” Sloan notes with a frown.
I chuckle, although truth be told, I’m nervous. “You know me, just getting my steps in.”
“I think that’s called ‘pacing,’ Beck.”
